Natural farming helps ex-serviceman to stand on his feet

Hamirpur (HP), June 15(UNI) The concept of the Natural farming, that was given a fillip by former Governor of state Shri Acharya Devvrat has done yeoman service to the society and farmers as farmers are enthusiastically taking up this technology for growing poison-free crops.
Ratan Chand, who was a soldier, is now doing service to the country through farming and has become a main force in the area in the field of natural farming.
Ratan Chand had joined the Army in 1975 and retired in 2003 after serving the country for nearly three decades. After that, the work of farming was started on his ancestral land. When his interest in agriculture started increasing, he came in contact with the Department of Agriculture and got information about the welfare schemes of the government. To irrigate the crops, he lifted the drain water with a pump and collected it in a tank and used it at the appropriate time, and adopted the method of drip and sprinkler irrigation to save water.
After guarding the borders for almost three decades, he has now carried forward the work of serving the nation by doing natural farming through agriculture. In this, his assistant has become the state government’s natural farming Khushal Kisan Yojana.
There are 20 panchayats and 172 villages in the Sujanpur development block of the district and is linked with the districts of Kangra and Mandi. Most of the farmers here belong to the small and marginal category.
He says that in the year 2018, he received information about training related to natural farming by Padma Shri Subhash Palekar from Agriculture Department (Atma), Development Block Sujanpur. Under this, after receiving 6 days of training, he started farming through the same method.
“This has led to a change in the condition of the land and fertility of the fields and the crops both and that too without the use of the chemical fertilizers. This way he also led him to stand on his feet without the help of anyone else”, he says.
He has appealed to the people to join this movement saying that the use of chemical fertilizers was harming their crops and their fields. Moreover, chemical fertilizer-based crops were harmful to the health of human beings and their animals too.